Twilight – Bitch Flicks

Unpopular Opinions in Film: A Critical Re-Examination of ‘Twilight’

My intent is not to claim that ‘Twilight’ is a perfect movie, but rather, I want to argue that it has more virtues than it is given credit for, and to point out that its dismissal is frequently based on pervasive sexist attitudes. I am not speaking for the other films in the series — all directed by men — but rather, the first film, which was written and directed by women (Melissa Rosenberg and Catherine Hardwicke, respectively), based on a novel written by a woman. There are many valid reasons why one may not enjoy ‘Twilight,’ but it is important to recognize that it is unfair and sexist to dismiss the film and its fans based on the fact that it is a romance told from a female perspective.

This guest post written by Angela Morrison appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions.

“He looks at you like… you’re something to eat,” says Mike Newton (Michael Welch) to his friend Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), regarding her sparkly new beau, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Mike’s comment serves as humorous dramatic irony, while also making it clear that Bella is desired by most of the men she comes in contact with. Mike’s simile is painfully, literally correct – Edward wants to drink Bella’s blood, and she knows it. Well, the foundation of any good relationship is honesty, right?

Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight (2008), based on Stephenie Meyer’s wildly popular novel of the same name, deals with teenage romance, vampirism, female agency, and desire. In her brilliant article on Twilight fans, Tanya Erzen outlines exactly who likes the series and how they show their devotion. She writes: “There have certainly been fan crazes before, but what differentiates the Twilight phenomenon is that its fan base consists almost entirely of girls and women.” The specifics of these girls and women – race, class, sexual orientation, religion – is not clear, but one thing is for sure: overwhelming numbers of women are vocal about their passion for the tales of Bella and Edward.

There is an insidious trend in our North American society wherein anything beloved by women – specifically young women – is automatically dismissed. Twilight is frequently looked down upon by both film critics and casual moviegoers, including people who have not seen the film or read the books. Erzen smartly observes that “denigrating these female fans as rabid, obsessed, and hysterical is a favorite pastime for many media outlets.”

My intent is not to claim that Twilight is a perfect movie, but rather, I want to argue that it has more virtues than it is given credit for, and to point out that its dismissal is frequently based on pervasive sexist attitudes. I am not speaking for the other films in the series – all directed by men – but rather, the first film, which was written and directed by women (Melissa Rosenberg and Catherine Hardwicke, respectively), based on a novel written by a woman. There are many valid reasons why one may not enjoy Twilight, but it is important to recognize that it is unfair and sexist to dismiss the film and its fans based on the fact that it is a romance told from a female perspective.

I am personally not a fan of the Twilight books, as I do not connect with Meyers’ writing style. She has many good ideas, but they often do not come across clearly in her writing. Where the book fails, Hardwicke and Rosenberg are successful. Some of the cheesy lines make it into the movie (“You’re like my own personal brand of heroin…”), but it is so well-made that this is easily forgiven. Hardwicke has a strong authorial voice and presence, often focusing her films on young female protagonists experiencing strange and sometimes painful events. Both Twilight and Thirteen (2003) feature washed-out cinematography shot by Elliot Davis, and deal with teenage female protagonists living with a single parent. The similarities between the images and themes in these films represent a through-line across Hardwicke’s filmography. Twilight‘s icy grey-blue and deep green images beautifully portray the damp, rainy, sometimes mysterious setting of Forks, Washington.

Writers, such as Dr. Natalie Wilson, argue that Twilight upholds traditional gender roles, and romanticizes unhealthy behavior in romantic relationships. Twilight sends the message that a woman’s only purpose in life is to love and be loved by the man of her dreams. Bella loves Edward obsessively – towards the end of the first film, she stutters profusely when Edward suggests she spend some time with her mother, and says, “We can’t be apart” Edward is frequently cold and distant, and constantly tells her they shouldn’t be together – while at the same time, proclaiming his everlasting devotion to her. These mixed signals are confusing and painful for Bella, but readers/viewers interpret their relationship as transcendently romantic. Bella is willing to give up her life and her soul to become a vampire, so she can be with Edward forever. This all-encompassing, obsessive relationship is clearly unhealthy, and borders on being emotionally abusive. While I argue that Twilight has merits, it is also important for me to reiterate feminist critiques of its outdated gender roles and dangerous romanticization of heterosexual and heteronormative monogamy as the only option for women.

Bella is frequently dismissed as weak and passive, but she is more interesting and complex than meets the eye. Brigit McCone at Bitch Flicks points out that Hardwicke’s camera privileges Bella’s point of view – the female gaze. Here, Edward is the spectacle to be looked at – he is an alluring, seductive vampire, and Bella spends a lot of time considering her desire for him. Edward takes off his shirt and reveals to Bella that his skin glitters in the sunlight, and she breathlessly tells him, “You’re beautiful.” The camera is with Bella in almost every scene, and the audience experiences things as Bella does. There are simply not many movies where female experiences are centered, especially not big-budget films like Twilight.

The film also features many female characters who support one another, such as Bella’s friends Jessica (Anna Kendrick) and Angela (Christian Serratos). Bella assures Angela she is a “strong, confident woman,” and urges her to subvert gender roles and ask Eric (Justin Chon) to the prom, instead of waiting for him to ask her. Edward’s sister Alice (Ashley Greene) immediately takes a liking to Bella, letting her know that she has seen the future, and they are going to be great friends. Bella also risks her life out of love and loyalty in order to try and save her mother from the violent vampire James (Cam Gigandet). Twilight not only centers individual female experience, but female friendship and support.

I previously outlined some of the ways in which Bella and Edward’s relationship is unhealthy, but what is particularly striking to me is how they get together in the first place. Bella is enchanted by Edward and his golden amber eyes in biology class, and does her best to strike up a friendship with him – she remains pleasant and engaged, even when he is incredibly rude to her. She slowly realizes that there is something different about him – something magical, possibly dangerous — and through her own research, pieces together that he is a vampire. She is active, not passive — she is the one that pursues him most of the time. Bella finds herself faced with creatures out of a horror movie, and instead of running away in fear, she bravely embraces and accepts them (particularly Edward). Edward can read everyone’s mind except Bella’s – this gives one the sense that she has hidden depth, and constantly leaves us questioning why she is not vulnerable to Edward’s probing vampire powers. Bella is open-minded, easily willing to accept that there is more to the world than meets the eye. She follows her heart, and does not shy away from her desires: she wants to be with Edward, so she pursues him. She doesn’t let Edward’s icy glares stop her from being friends with Jacob (Taylor Lautner), and conversely, she doesn’t let Jacob and his father convince her to stay away from Edward. She is played with vulnerability, wit, and quiet passion by the incredibly talented Kristen Stewart, an actress frequently criticized for not conforming to traditional ideas of femininity.

One of my favorite things about Meyers’ story is its core concept: a family of vampires living in the lush, chilly Pacific Northwest, where one of the vampires falls in love with a human. It is a romantic and interesting, if not particularly unique, take on the literary (and cinematic) vampire tradition. Catherine Hardwicke’s film is the strongest entry in the cinematic series, largely because of the way she privileges the female gaze and point of view. The film is visually beautiful — one can almost feel the cold, damp air of Forks – and it can be seen as part of a larger whole: Catherine Hardwicke’s cohesive filmography. The film is perfectly cast, and features strong performances from many women and people of color (Eric, Tyler, Angela, Jacob, Laurent, and Billy, to name a few). The film was wildly successful at the box office, despite being criticized and dismissed by people who do not take female-centric projects seriously.

Surely, there are ideological problems with Twilight, but it is worth taking a closer look at. There are complexities and subtleties within the film and its performances that are not visible on the surface. Erzen said it best when she noted that critics should “…begin taking the complicated practices and pleasures of female fans seriously.”

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Tanya Erzen’s ‘Fanpire’ Blog Tour: Fans of The Twilight Saga

YouTube Break: The Twilight Saga: An Interview with Dr. Natalie Wilson

Movie Review: The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Shishihokodan: Ice Prince/Wolf Rivalry as Female Madonna/Whore

Violence Against Indigenous Women: Fun, Sexy, and No Big Deal on the Big Screen

Angela Morrison is a queer Canadian cinephile and feminist, and she is Team Jacob. She has written for Bitch Flicks before and writes about film on her blog.

Violence Against Indigenous Women: Fun, Sexy, and No Big Deal on the Big Screen

Over and over, violence against Indigenous women is made to titillate, built into narratives along with action, suspense, swashbuckling, and romance. Indigenous women become exotic props, and when we are identified with these dehumanized caricatures, it becomes easier to treat us inhumanely.

This guest post by Elissa Washuta originally appeared at Racialicious and on her Tumblr. It previously appeared at Bitch Flicks is reposted here as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women. It is cross-posted with permission.

The body of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, a member of Sagkeeng First Nation, was pulled from the Red River in Winnipeg on Aug. 17. Her murder has brought about an important conversation about the widespread violence against First Nations women and the Canadian government’s lack of concern.

In her August 20th Globe and Mail commentary, Dr. Sarah Hunt of the Kwagiulth band of the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation wrote about the limited success of government inquiries and her concerns about other measures taken in reaction to acts of violence already committed, such as the establishment of DNA databases for missing persons. Dr. Hunt writes:

“Surely tracking indigenous girls’ DNA so they can be identified after they die is not the starting point for justice. Indigenous women want to matter before we go missing. We want our lives to matter as much as our deaths; our stake in the present political struggle for indigenous resurgence is as vital as the future.”

Violence against Indigenous women is not, of course, happening only in Canada. In the U.S., for example, the Justice Department reports that one in three American Indian women have been raped or experienced an attempted rape, and the rate of sexual assault against American Indian women is more than twice the national average. This violence is not taking place only in Indian Country.

In the Globe and Mail on August 22nd, Elizabeth Renzetti wrote about three recent murders of First Nations women.

“What unites these three cases is that the victims – Tina Fontaine, Samantha Paul and Loretta Saunders – were all aboriginal women. What else unites them, besides the abysmal circumstances of their deaths? What economic, cultural, historical or social factors? Anything? Nothing?”

I can’t answer that, but I know that all of these women — and every other Indigenous woman in Canada and the U.S. — lives in a society that includes images of violence against Indigenous women in its entertainment products. Over and over, violence against Indigenous women is made to titillate, built into narratives along with action, suspense, swashbuckling, and romance. Indigenous women become exotic props, and when we are identified with these dehumanized caricatures, it becomes easier to treat us inhumanely.

Take as an example Disney’s Pocahontas. Released in 1995, the cartoon feature has replaced the historical figure’s life story in the minds of many Americans. Much has been made of Disney’s exotification of Pocahontas. John Smith is only compelled to put down his gun because of her beauty. Pocahontas is imbued with animal qualities throughout the film as she scuttles, bounds, swims, creeps, and dives. This reinforces a long-held conception of Native peoples as being “close to nature” at best, “more animal than human” at worst — and the latter is a view that makes us easier to abuse.

The recent depiction of Emily (a Makah woman) in the Twilight series offers viewers a direct representation of violence in a fictional Native community. Emily’s broad, visible facial scar is said to be the result of her partner Sam’s (a Quileute man/werewolf) outburst of rage: he was a younger werewolf, with difficulty controlling his “phasing” from human to wolf, he became angry, and she was standing too close. The presentation of this story is problematic in its shrugging absolution of Sam of his responsibility in maiming Emily, and the aftermath is heartbreaking: in the more detailed version of the story presented in the Twilight books, after Sam mauls Emily, she not only takes him back, but convinces him to forgive himself. This sends the message that an episode of violence can and should be overlooked for the sake of romance. Emily, a Native woman, becomes expendable. Her safety is of little concern; the fact that Sam has “imprinted” on her, cementing his attachment, is more important than the reality of recidivism.

In a Globe and Mail editorial, “How to Stop an Epidemic of Native Deaths,” the author brings up the many social factors at work in the epidemic of violence against Native women. I bring up the problematic and pervasive imagery above not because I think it is the most problematic issue, but because it is what I know, and because we can start solving it with our individual actions. We don’t need to call Native women “squaws” and joke that they were “hookers” when forced into prostitution, as Drunk History did last year. We can make better choices than “naughty Native” costumes on Halloween. We have the freedom to choose the representations we make in the world, and when we perpetuate damaging stereotypes of Indigenous women as rapeable, we are using our autonomy to disempower others.

Karen Warren wrote in “A feminist philosophical perspective on ecofeminist spiritualities”:

“Dysfunctional systems are often maintained through systematic denial, a failure or inability to see the reality of a situation. This denial need not be conscious, intentional, or malicious; it only needs to be pervasive to be effective.”

I’m tired of hearing that these images aren’t harmful. I’d rather see how much they’re missed when they’re gone than continue to listen to the insistence that the image of Pocahontas at the end of a gun barrel is wholesome while, every day, more and more Indigenous women die while we are told that this is not a phenomenon, not a problem, nothing more than crime.

Elissa Washuta is an adviser in the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington and a faculty mentor in the MFA program in creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her first book, a memoir called My Body Is a Book of Rules, was recently published by Red Hen Press.

Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Near Dark’: Busting Stereotypes and Drawing Blood

Both brutally violent and shockingly sexy, ‘Near Dark’s influence can be felt nearly thirty years later on a new crop of unusual vampire dramas that simultaneously embrace and reject the conventions of the genre. … Yet among all these films about outsiders, ‘Near Dark’ will always have a special place in my heart for being the one to show me that as a filmmaker, I was not alone in the world after all.

This guest post written by Lee Jutton appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.

There were many reasons why I felt like an outsider while studying film and television production at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Some were related to class; I felt as though everyone around me had more money (and fewer student loans). Some were related to my lack of practical production experience; prior to film school, I had never operated a camera apart from a few silly movies starring action figures. Some reasons, I am willing to admit, were inside my own introverted, antisocial head. However, it was my taste in film that really made me feel as though I did not belong at a school with “arts” in its name. I like action movies packed with stylish fight sequences, zombie movies so gory that every frame is splattered with brains, and science-fiction movies crammed with special effects. As a writer and director, I aspired to be Peter Jackson, Edgar Wright, Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and Robert Rodriguez all rolled into one frenetic package, which makes you feel a bit awkward when everyone around you worships at the art-house altars of David Lynch and Terrence Malick. It’s also a bit awkward when you realize that all of the directors you look up to are men.

When I was in my final year at NYU, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director. This was already a big deal, but it was all the more important to me because she had won it for directing The Hurt Locker, a tense, literally explosive drama about a troubled bomb diffuser in Iraq. Here was a woman making films that were dark, disturbing, visually compelling and packed with action — all things I aspired to include in my own work — and getting recognized for it by the Hollywood establishment. Delving deep into Bigelow’s wide-ranging oeuvre, which includes Soviet submarine thriller K-19: The Widowmaker and Keanu classic Point Break, inspired and reassured me while I was struggling to pinpoint my own identity, both as a filmmaker and a woman.

My favorite Kathryn Bigelow film, and the one I feel the most kinship with as a filmmaker, is her second feature, Near Dark. Released in 1987 at the height of a bloodsucker boom led by The Lost Boys, it manages to stand out from the pack thanks to its improbable but incredible combination of the vampire genre with that of the Western to create one weird, pulpy masterpiece. Before watching Near Dark, I primarily expected to encounter vampires in eerie, overcast Eastern European locales filled with fog and ancient history; to encounter them smashing across the broad, sunburnt plains of Texas in a battered motorhome was shocking and refreshing. Near Dark’s vampires are never referred to as such, nor do they have the chivalrous manners and old-fashioned elegance of many of their forefathers. Rather, they’re a marauding band of leather-coated drifters who wouldn’t be out of place in the world of Mad Max, coated liberally with blood, sweat and dirt. Both brutally violent and shockingly sexy, Near Dark’s influence can be felt nearly thirty years later on a new crop of unusual vampire dramas that simultaneously embrace and reject the conventions of the genre.

Near Dark opens with a close-up of a bloodsucking creature, but not the one that you expect — it’s a mosquito, hovering on the arm of farm boy Caleb Colton (an achingly young Adrian Pasdar) until he smacks it away. Driving into town to meet some friends, he spies an innocent-looking blonde pixie of a girl emerging from a shop while licking a vanilla ice cream cone. What follows is an all-American meet-cute laden with vampire innuendo that poor Caleb just cannot comprehend.

“Can I have a bite?” Caleb drawls, oozing earnest Southern charm.
“A bite?”
“Yeah. I’m just dying for a cone.”
“Dying?”

The girl, Mae (Jenny Wright), is not just any pretty girl. She’s a honey trap, luring unsuspecting victims into the clutches of her nomadic vampire family. Caleb behaves as though Mae is the prey, the object to be pursued and hopefully won; little does he know, it is entirely the other way around. When he tries to impress her with a lasso, she grabs hold of the rope herself and reels him in, shocking him with her strength. “I haven’t met any girls like you,” Caleb says, attempting to flatter her. “No,” Mae replies in a tense voice, “You sure haven’t.”

The instant, almost animal attraction between Caleb and Mae is obvious, and they share a long, romantic night driving around the Texas plains before Mae begins to panic that she won’t be home before sunrise. Caleb assumes she’s only afraid her daddy will punish her for being out all night, and coyly asks for a kiss before she goes. What he gets is far more than he bargained for — a passionate, hungry kiss, sure, but one that culminates in a nasty bite on the neck and the sight of his bright red blood dripping down Mae’s white chin as she hops down from his truck.

Soon it is morning, and Caleb finds himself staggering across the fields towards his father’s farm, weakened by the harsh rays of the rising sun, with telltale smoke sizzling up from his slowly roasting skin. Before he can make it to safety, he is scooped up by Mae and her gang in their motorhome. They’re ready to suck him dry — that is, until Mae mentions to the others that she did a bit more than just reveal her true nature to him. By biting him, he has become her responsibility –and potentially, her mate. Furious, the rest of the vampires reluctantly agree that Caleb can stay alive a little bit longer and be given the chance to learn to live like one of them. In other words, to live by the cover of darkness, luring (usually via hitchhiking) and killing innocent people without hesitation in order to survive.

“What do we do now?” Caleb, dumbfounded by his new immortal status, asks Mae.
“Anything we want, until the end of time,” she replies.

During Caleb and Mae’s first meeting, Caleb oozes confidence and plays at dominance, the way most boys do when trying to win over a girl. However, once he becomes a vampire, the reversal of stereotypical gender roles is striking. Caleb becomes entirely dependent on Mae. It is only her attraction to him that keeps the rest of her family from killing him on the spot, and it is only her willingness to kill for him and allow him to drink her own blood that keeps him alive in the days that follow. Caleb needs Mae, and because of this, their intimacy grows in new and bizarre ways. In one particularly passionate scene, Mae bites open her own wrist and clutches Caleb’s desperate, hungry head to her while he feeds, until he almost kills her in his fervor.

Despite his obvious need to consume blood, Caleb cannot bring himself to take a life, whereas the other vampires seem not only to kill to live, but also to live to kill. They’ve survived so long by any means necessary that they don’t hesitate to wipe out the entire clientele of a rundown roadside bar for both food and fun (a scene of creative carnage that rivals the equally deadly tavern scene in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds). The gang includes Jesse (Lance Henriksen), the charismatic leader who fought for the south in the Civil War; Jesse’s mate, Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein), whose big blonde hair and skintight ensembles can’t help but remind you of another iconic Eighties femme fatale, the android Pris in Blade Runner; Homer (Joshua Miller), who was turned as a boy and perpetually struggles with having an ancient brain trapped inside a child’s body; and the particularly vicious Severen (a delightfully unhinged Bill Paxton), who introduces himself to Caleb by informing him, “I’m gonna separate your head from your shoulders. Hope you don’t mind none.” They all speak in a bizarre, stylized version of Southern dialect that drips in menace and the occasional old-fashioned turn of phrase that comes from having lived long enough to take credit for starting the Great Chicago Fire. But Mae, the youngest of the vampires, is different. She kills to keep herself alive, but she seems to take a lot less sick joy in it than the others, and the more time she spends with Caleb, the more their heartless behavior seems to turn her off. By being with Caleb, she is reminded of what it was to be human — after all, she was one herself not so long ago.

Near Dark doesn’t have much in the way of plot; Caleb is dragged around Texas by the vampires, the timer on his existence counting down faster and faster, while his father and little sister search for him. The pulsating beat of the awesomely Eighties electronic score by Tangerine Dream adds to the urgency. It all culminates in an explosive finale with numerous characters meeting horrific ends via spontaneous combustion under the cloudless blue Texas sky — beautiful, and without mercy. There’s a happy ending that some might think a cop-out, as it goes against traditional vampire lore. Yet, rejecting traditional and expected vampire tropes is one of the things that makes Near Dark such a memorable film. Nothing about it is expected. It breaks all of the rules and makes up its own along the way. This Southern-fried story of young love, lust and lost innocence has as much in common with Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show than any Dracula movie.

Today, Near Dark’s legacy lives on in films like A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, from another promising woman director, Ana Lily Amirpour. In a film described as “the first Iranian vampire Western,” Amirpour brings vampires to another unfamiliar locale — this time, a dead-end Iranian town called Bad City. Here, a nameless bloodsucking girl (Sheila Vand) prowls the dark, empty streets in a chador, using her deceptively delicate and feminine appearance to lure and attack men who abuse women. Like Mae, she is much stronger than she initially appears. Independent film icon Jim Jarmusch also recently experimented in the vampire genre with Only Lovers Left Alive, which stars Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston as an ancient, moody, bohemian couple holed up in rundown Detroit. While less of a direct descendant of Near Dark than A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, ones feels that this sexy, slow-moving story could not have been told without its more frantically passionate predecessor. Here, the horror aspects of the traditional vampire story take a backseat as the film explores how love can be powerful enough to survive enough dark moments to fill multiple lifetimes. The loneliness inherent in being immortal seems to be the one constant among all vampire films, even the most untraditional ones — and yes, even Twilight. Yet among all these films about outsiders, Near Dark will always have a special place in my heart for being the one to show me that as a filmmaker, I was not alone in the world after all.

Lee Jutton has directed short films starring a killer toaster, a killer Christmas tree, and a not-killer leopard. She previously reviewed new DVD and theatrical releases as a staff writer for Just Press Play. You can follow her on Medium for more film reviews and on Twitter for an excessive amount of opinions on German soccer.

When the Girl Looks: The Girl’s Gaze in Teen TV

In this moment, then, Elena is completely relieved of the conventional position of girl-as-object, and is therefore able to occupy a different position as a desiring subject. By purposefully making herself invisible, Elena momentarily evades and perhaps refuses to be defined by the adult male gaze that governs girlhood.

This guest post by Athena Bellas appears as part of our theme week on The Female Gaze.

Within contemporary visual culture, girls are frequently positioned as spectacular objects to be looked at. For example, girls are often either positioned as eroticised objects of desire for an adult male gaze, or as pathologized objects of adult concern in order to makes diagnoses about “the problem with girls today.” Both of these gazes police the borders of girlhood, placing girls under the surveillance of a watchful and scrutinising adult eye. In both instances, the girl is positioned as a to-be-looked-at object rather than an active and agentic subject, which means that it is sometimes difficult for our culture to create space to imagine the girl as the holder of the gaze. When we do get representations of girls erotically contemplating the male figure, these representations are often met with derision and dismissal by adult culture. For example, reviews of the Twilight films repeatedly ridiculed Bella Swan’s erotic contemplation of Edward Cullen’s glittering, perfectly coiffed figure as mere fodder for girls’ “wet dreams” (like this is a bad thing), and fangirls shrieking with delight at the sight of their favourite boy band are diagnosed as embarrassingly hysterical and hormonal. This contempt for the girl’s gaze in patriarchal visual culture leads to what Michele Fine calls the “missing discourse of desire” for girls, because there is a consistent shaming, silencing, and erasure of girls’ expressions of desire.

However, even within this complex web of regulatory adult gazes, there are intervals and gaps where challenges and disruptions can take place. There are important spaces within visual culture that provide representations of a girl’s gaze, and I am particularly interested in teen television as one of these spaces. This television genre often centres on representing a teen heroine’s perspective and addresses a teen girl spectator, and the privileging of this frequently dismissed point of view has the potential to disrupt the central position of the adult male gaze. While not all teen TV does this successfully, there are certainly moments within this genre that provide a significant space for the representation of girls actively gazing, exploring, and acting upon their desires. There are, of course, many great examples of girls’ gazes in teen shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, My So-Called Life, Veronica Mars, and The 100, among others. In this article, I want to explore the CW network’s paranormal teen series The Vampire Diaries, because it has depicted clear moments in which the gendered terms of the desiring gaze are reversed, turning conventional tropes and iconographies of desire on their head. In this reconfiguration, the girl looks and is (at least temporarily) able to refuse her position as object-to-be-looked-at.

In one of the most iconic scenes from The Vampire Diaries, we can see a powerful, desiring teen girl gaze being represented. Damon and Elena are on a road trip together, and they stop at a motel for the night. At this stage in the narrative, the sexual tension between the two of them is so ridiculously palpable, and everyone is screaming, “Just kiss already!” at their TV screens. Elena feigns sleep, secretly watching a half-dressed Damon sip whiskey as he languorously reclines in a chair.

His bare torso is bathed in the moonlight that streams through the window, creating a beautiful dappled pattern of light and shade across his figure. The camera is aligned with Elena’s gaze, recording the details of Damon’s body in lingering extreme close-ups.

Importantly, Elena is temporarily “invisible” in this scene – her gaze is unmonitored and unreturned as she secretly watches him. In this moment, then, Elena is completely relieved of the conventional position of girl-as-object, and is therefore able to occupy a different position as a desiring subject. By purposefully making herself invisible, Elena momentarily evades and perhaps refuses to be defined by the adult male gaze that governs girlhood. I think that this moment is resistant space where alternatives to the dominant system of desire can be explored. This sequence provides an alternative visual language in which the male figure is made to bear what Laura Mulvey calls “the burden of sexual objectification,” allowing for the representation of the heroine’s active and agentic desire.

In another scene in season four, Damon undresses in front of Elena. In the first shot, we see Elena’s eyes carefully scanning Damon’s figure from head to toe and in the reverse shot, the camera scans and records the contours of his body in intricate detail, encouraging spectators to look at him in the same manner.

Like the scene described above, his body is spot-lit, but this time by shafts of gold sunlight streaming in through the windows, emphasising the openness of his display, and the clarity of Elena’s view of him. Damon unbuttons his trousers and asks Elena, “Are you staying for the whole show or…?” The soundtrack punctuates his playful offer by emphasising the sound of each button popping as he strips off his clothing. Damon recognises his status as Elena’s object of desire, and that he is “on show” for her gaze. As a spectacular object on show, Damon occupies a conventionally feminine position – he is definitely an object of erotic contemplation and spectacle – rather than occupying the traditionally masculine position of action, moving the narrative forward, and control.

By spectacularizing Damon’s figure through the use of extreme close-ups, ultra slow motion, and dramatic lighting, the text invites spectators to look at the male figure through Elena’s desiring perspective. So, the female gaze exists within the narrative world of The Vampire Diaries, and through these representational strategies, spectators are also encouraged to align and identify with it – to occupy and explore this position of active looking alongside Elena. I think that these moments, which reverse the conventional politics of representing the gaze, reconfigure some of the traditional iconography associated with girlhood that ordinarily positions girls as desirable, rather than desiring, and as spectacles, rather than subjects. In this text, we are presented with girls who are able to find moments in which they can evade the adult male gaze, and also claim a desiring subjective position from which to look. This pushes the representational boundaries that often contain girlhood, and I am hopeful that this results in an expansion into new and even more disruptive territories of articulation for the teen girl gaze.

Dr. Athena Bellas has a PhD in Screen and Cultural Studies from the University of Melbourne. Her PhD and current research explore representations of adolescent girlhood in fairy tales and contemporary screen media. She blogs at teenscreenfeminism.wordpress.com and tweets at @AthenaBellas and @TeenScreenFem.

Shishihokodan: The Destructive Female Gaze of YA Supernatural Action Romantic Comedy

This repost by Brigit McCone appears as part of our theme week on The Female Gaze.

YA Supernatural Action Romantic Comedy (SARCom) was created in 1987 by the manga artist Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2. Her mixture of kung-fu demon-of-the-week fights, romance and comedy, with a supernaturally strong heroine, dual shapeshifting supernaturally strong love interests and sarcastically quipping sidekicks, was then a completely unique format and rapidly became popular in the West and Japan. Takahashi’s creative control as visual and story artist (particularly after the success of the slapstick Urusei Yatsura) meant that the aesthetics of SARCom were shaped by the female gaze from the outset. Among its innovations, Ranma 1/2 introduces an Ice Prince/Wolf love rivalry between the hero Ranma and his rival Ryoga, a trope Takahashi would develop in her next SARCom Inuyasha. Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer popularized the SARCom in mainstream Western culture, developing its own Ice Prince/Wolf rivalry with the characters Angel and Spike. The Ice Prince/Wolf dynamic now dominates teen girl cinema, after Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight set a new record for commercially successful female directors.

Hardwicke’s camera continually privileges Kristen Stewart’s female gaze as Bella Swan, moving with her and focusing on her lip-biting lustful reactions, while offering Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen as erotic spectacle, the camera panning over him lovingly. Twilight also almost fails a reverse-Bechdel through the intense Bellacentrism of all its characters. Male viewers react with defensive ridicule to the uncomfortable sensation that they are supposed to be lustful fourteen-year-old girls when watching this film. In this moment, they have a brief sensation of what it is to be the female spectator of 90% of Hollywood films, uncomfortably reminded by the Male Gaze that you are somehow supposed to have the reactions and expectations of a heterosexual man. Their unfamiliarity with the mechanics of the female gaze became obvious when Hardwicke was replaced in Twilight sequels by male directors, who fumbled uncomfortably to recapture her intensity. Not only excluded as unintended spectator, the male viewer of SARCom is more likely to identify with the always defeated “Wolf” (sexual pursuer, equivalent to female “Whore”), the vulnerable, openly desiring rival. The victory of the unrealistic “Ice Prince” (sexual resistor, equivalent to female “Madonna”) is therefore destructive to the male viewer’s ego, often provoking a hostility barely concealed under sneering ridicule, just as the Male Gaze’s Madonna/Whore logic has always been destructive to the female ego. So what, actually, is going on?

Celebrating Celibacy: The “Ice Prince” Archetype

The defining characteristic of the “Ice Prince” is his combination of emotional fidelity and sexual unavailability, which amplifies gazing female desire and sexual frustration simultaneously, and is generally accompanied by his emphasized superiority and/or physical threat. That is, his sexual unavailability becomes a symptom of his overall domination. Ranma, the hero of Ranma 1/2, not only rivals the heroine Akane in martial arts, but periodically transforms into a girl more sexually attractive than she is. This tantalizing superiority enhances the character’s sexual unavailability; the world of Ranma 1/2 plays with gender but is strictly heteronormative with biological sex. Ranma 1/2 occupies an intermediate position between the shounen (boys’ manga) harem plot of Takahashi’s previous Urusei Yatsura and the love rivalries of her later Inuyasha: as a shounen hero, Ranma is the center of a harem of sex-crazed women, but as a shoujo (girls’ manga) hero, he must be sexually attracted to none of them. The sexual friction from these conflicting genre demands seems to have accidentally invented the “ice prince” archetype.

Inuyasha tames its threateningly feral hero, while maintaining his sexual unavailability, by making him frustratingly in love with a previous incarnation of the heroine Kagome – thus, he loves Kagome as a reincarnation, but cannot consummate this love due to his frustrating fidelity to her original.

The most extreme “Ice Prince” archetype in Takahashi’s work is Sesshomaru, the haughty, aristocratic pureblood demon introduced as a villain, accompanied by a sycophantic toady, who is attempting to cheat his socially inferior, half-brother Inuyasha out of his inheritance; that is, almost exactly the set-up of Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride & Prejudice. She may have intended to create a villain, but Takahashi falls into Austen’s tried and tested Darcy arc: Sesshomaru meets an open-hearted, mischievous and unintimidated girl whom he struggles to scorn as inferior; his flaws are contextualized by introducing his controlling, snobbish mother; finally, he risk everything to rescue the redeemer-girl. Introducing a poison-clawed Demon Dog Darcy, with the power to raise the dead and blast his enemies to hell as a supporting character, unbalances Inuyasha: Sesshomaru’s well-written redemption arc commences just as Inuyasha’s own arc grinds to a halt, spending a hundred chapters randomly upgrading his sword while the fandom sways toward the narratively marginalized Sesshomaru. Demon Dog Darcy is then forced to hand his emotionally-earned powers over to Inuyasha in an exasperatingly contrived plot twist. But Sesshomaru’s very marginalization in Inuyasha‘s narrative, and total detachment from the main heroine, function to intensify fangirl emotional and sexual frustration: the ultimate aim of any Ice Prince. Although Demon Dog Darcy progressively thaws emotionally, the character’s sexual unavailability is emphasized by spiked armor encircling his chest and maintained by filling the “Elizabeth Bennet” role with a pre-pubescent girl.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel loves and saves Buffy but is made sexually unavailable by a curse that he will lose his soul if he has sex with her. This loss of soul also allows the intensification of Angel’s dominating physical threat and sadism, while permitting the “real” Angel to remain a dutiful lover. Twilight likewise presents Edward Cullen as a deeply loving and loyal “Ice Prince” who threatens Bella repeatedly by mentioning his urge to devour her and, of course, is sexually unavailable through his fear of ‘losing control’. All these narrative devices intensify friction, rather than satisfaction. However, since a female viewer can never fulfil her own sexual desires for a fictional construct, her experience of frustrated sexual tension is most satisfyingly expressed by sexual tension within the narrative. Also, because society constructs men as permanent sexual pursuers, a woman is relieved of her need to resist, and able to fully and extravagantly express her lust in a safer space, when the male is reimagined as loving resistor.

Demon-in-Distress: The “Wolf” Archetype

The defining characteristic of the “Wolf,” the eternally rejected sexual pursuer, is his combination of desperate emotional and sexual availability with repeatedly emphasized vulnerability and animalism. The most exaggeratedly vulnerable is Ranma 1/2‘s Ryoga, a little boy lost in the literal sense that he farcically lacks any sense of direction. The fanged, impulsive Ryoga’s regular transformations into a small, cute piglet add to his vulnerability. His inability to tell the heroine Akane of his true nature and feelings, out of fear of losing his privileged access as her pet pig, forms a near-perfect satire of the “Friendzone” phenomenon.

Inuyasha‘s impulsive, hotheaded Koga is a wolf-demon. In contrast to the elusive, emotionally conflicted hero Inuyasha, Koga falls for the heroine Kagome almost immediately and pursues her consistently. The manga is notable for constantly placing Koga in helpless “demon-in-distress” situations requiring rescue, and for counterbalancing Sesshomaru’s spiked, hug-repellent armor and Inuyasha’s loose robes with Koga’s skimpy armor and furred micro-miniskirt, concealing his crotch only by careful choice of viewing angle. This ogling display of male flesh is characteristic of the Wolf, maximizing the friction between his overt desirability and the need to resist him.

Although Buffy‘s Spike is a vampire, theoretically an “ice prince” archetype, the character bears a dog’s name and typical “wolf” impulsiveness and romantic vulnerability. In his second season introduction, he is confined to a wheelchair and forced to watch his beloved Drusilla seduced by ‘Ice Prince’ rival Angel. In the third season, he’s pathetically dumped and weeping. In the fourth, he’s neutered by a brain chip that zaps him for attacking, so “he doesn’t chase the other puppies anymore.” In the fifth, the trope of Spike’s muscular nakedness is introduced as vulnerability; he bares his chest to Buffy’s stake and confesses his love. This sequence is revealed as Spike’s dream; he is stripped and Buffy is fully clothed even in his own sexual fantasies. Spike is also stripped and tortured for love of Buffy by the dominant, female deity Glory in this season. In the sixth, after their first sexual encounter, Buffy is again fully clothed, abusing Spike verbally while he sprawls naked and defenseless. She repeatedly violates his sexual boundaries from a position of dominance; his attempt to force himself on her is presented as a crime of pathetic desperation. Though ‘Ice Prince’ Angel wishes to torment and kill Buffy when he is soulless, Spike’s soulless state is no obstacle to his love – the emotional dependence of the “Wolf” knows no bounds.

Twilight’s Jacob Black is another wolf defined by constant loyalty, before attempting to force himself onto Bella in an act portrayed as pathetic desperation. Where Edward’s brief moment of toplessness is a dramatic, suicidal act that will dazzle a watching crowd, Jacob’s muscular toplessness and skimpy attire are chronic, underlining his tantalizing availability and maximizing mental friction in the female spectators, as the heroine resists.

Shishihokodan! Or, Why Team Jacob Loses

Comparing the fandom of all four series reveals an interesting trend: fangirls are roughly equally divided between Team Jacob and Team Edward, Team Spike and Team Angel, Team Ryoga and Team Ranma, Team Koga and Team Inuyasha; nonetheless, the “Ice Prince” always gets the girl. It would be easy to blame the creators. Yet, Stephenie Meyer claims to be “Team Jacob.” Both Marti Noxon and Jane Espenson, Buffy‘s major female writer/directors, have made statements in support of the Buffy/Spike (“Spuffy”) romance. Rumiko Takahashi’s writings in the romcom genre, Maison Ikkoku and One Pound Gospel, also reward and root for heroes in the vulnerable “Wolf” mode, and it is Takahashi who provides a structural explanation for ‘ice prince’ triumph with Ranma 1/2‘s Shishihokodan arc.

The “Shishihokodan” is a blast of energy which enables perpetual loser Ryoga to defeat the hero Ranma by harnessing his own heartbreak. Ranma attempts to defeat the all-powerful Shishihokodan with a confidence-blast, but can only triumph by giving Ryoga momentary hope of sexual opportunity. In other words, Ryoga loses not because he is inferior, but because losing is the paradoxical source of his power. Any woman attracted to the “Wolf'” archetype is inherently drawn to vulnerability; her attraction is intensified by the wolf’s heartbroken rejection, her frustration intensified by the heroine’s resistance. Any woman attracted to the “Ice Prince” is inherently drawn to dominance; her attraction would be reduced by his loss of mastery if he were defeated. As such, pursuing the resistant hero, and resisting the pursuing hero, create positively and negatively charged polarities to an explosive battery of sexual tension; a narrative trap which dooms the “wolf,” as Takahashi showed herself sympathetically aware with the Shishihokodan arc.

The wolf is difficult to dispose of: any alternative love interest would undermine his painful availability, thus one could only be introduced with unsatisfactory suddenness at the last minute to make a weak consolation price. The sudden arrival of a pig-fetishist marks Ryoga’s sidelining in Ranma 1/2; a wolf-girl for Koga is a last-minute addition to the Inuyasha anime, while Koga simply loses his previously foolhardy fighting spirit, forgets his long-established vengeance vendetta and slinks out of the original manga after admitting that Kagome should be with Inuyasha. Abandoning pursuit annihilates a Wolf’s narrative role. Most disturbingly, the newly arrived love interest for Jacob Black is literally newly-arrived as a newborn; his obsessive need to psychologically groom an infant into a future bride doesn’t bother the infant’s parents, presumably merely relieved that the wolf has been disposed of. More satisfyingly, rather than slinking away Koga-style, Spike’s acceptance that Buffy can’t love him “but thanks for saying” allows him to destroy the Hellmouth and be redeemed, incinerating himself in a spectacular blast of purest self-destructive Shishihokodan.

Recognizing the function of Ice Prince/Wolf in YA SARCom implies the continual defeat of the Whore as structural necessity in male writings also – as a pursuing character she must be resisted to generate sexual tension, regardless of whether the male author is Team Madonna or Team Whore. The destructive impact on the self-image of female viewers is pure collateral damage, just as our SARCom is poisonously emasculating for male viewers. In fact, mankind’s Whore is generally more empowered than womankind’s Wolf, probably because culture sees male sexuality as common weakness but female sexuality as social rebellion. It is the female gaze’s model of dominant-resistor/submissive-pursuer that aligns the rivalry dynamic of triumphant dominant with the love dynamic of triumphant resistor in a perfect feedback loop, structurally maximizing sexual tension (hence the squealing). But the collateral damage for a male viewer is the destruction of the character he most identifies with, in a blast of purest Shishihokodan. As women well know, it sucks to be the unintended spectator.

Brigit McCone is unapologetically Team Wolf, writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and making weird Pride and Prejudice analogies.

Shishihokodan: Ice Prince/Wolf Rivalry As Female Madonna/Whore

I would argue that genres dominated by female scopophilia and sexual tension, such as the YA Supernatural Action Romantic Comedy (SARCom) genre, challenge Mulvey’s paradigm and allow us better understanding of the role of desire in shaping visual media.

This is a guest post by Brigit McCone.

With so much feminist discussion of the Objectifying Male Gaze(TM) and its effects, we often fail to consider the hetero-female objectifying gaze, or scopophilia, in visual media. Indeed, feminist film critic Laura Mulvey effectively denied its existence in her influential 1975 essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” which states that women “cannot view the decline of the traditional film form with anything more than sentimental regret” as female onscreen presence must monolithically serve as passive erotic fetish for the Male Gaze, unless scopophilic pleasure is disrupted by radical techniques. I would argue that genres dominated by female scopophilia and sexual tension, such as the YA Supernatural Action Romantic Comedy (SARCom) genre, challenge Mulvey’s paradigm and allow us better understanding of the role of desire in shaping visual media.

SARCom was created in 1987 by the manga artist Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2. Her mixture of kung-fu demon-of-the-week fights, romance and comedy, with a supernaturally strong heroine, dual shapeshifting supernaturally strong love interests and sarcastically quipping sidekicks, was then a completely unique story and rapidly became popular in the West and Japan. Takahashi’s creative control as visual and story artist (particularly after the success of the slapstick Urusei Yatsura) meant that the aesthetics of SARCom were shaped by the female gaze from the outset. Among its innovations, Ranma 1/2 introduces an Ice Prince/Wolf love rivalry between the hero Ranma and his rival Ryoga, a trope Takahashi would develop in her next SARCom Inuyasha. Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer popularized the SARCom in mainstream Western culture, developing its own Ice Prince/Wolf rivalry with the characters Angel and Spike. The Ice Prince/Wolf dynamic now dominates teen girl cinema, after Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight made her the most commercially successful female director of all time.

Twilight‘s inversion of Mulvey’s gendered model of cinema, with Hardwicke’s camera continually privileging Kristen Stewart’s gaze as Bella Swan, and offering Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen as erotic spectacle, would be interesting to analyze. Twilight also almost fails a reverse-Bechdel through the intense Bellacentrism of all its characters. In this essay, however, I would like to focus on the Ice Prince/Wolf rivalry itself, as a generic trope of SARCom, and its illuminating parallels with the male Madonna/Whore complex.

Celebrating Celibacy: The “Ice Prince” Archetype

The defining characteristic of the “Ice Prince” is his combination of emotional fidelity and sexual unavailability, generally accompanied by emphasized superiority and by physical threat. Ranma, the hero of Ranma 1/2, not only rivals the heroine Akane in martial arts, but periodically transforms into a girl more sexually attractive than she is. This tantalizing superiority in femininity enhances the character’s sexual unavailability; the world of Ranma 1/2 plays with gender but is strictly heteronormative with biological sex. His loyalty and rescuing of Akane go alongside Ranma’s constant sexual frigidity. Ranma 1/2 occupies an intermediate position between the shounen (boys’ manga) harem plot of Takahashi’s previous Urusei Yatsura and the love rivalries of her later Inuyasha: as a shounen hero, Ranma is the center of a harem of sex-crazed women, but as a shoujo (girls’ manga) “ice prince” he must be sexually attracted to none of them.

The most extreme “Ice Prince” archetype in Takahashi’s work is Sesshomaru, the haughty, aristocratic pureblood demon introduced as a villain, accompanied by a sycophantic toady, and attempting to cheat his socially inferior, half-brother Inuyasha out of his inheritance; that is, almost exactly the set-up of Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride & Prejudice. The character is also redeemed by Austen’s strategy: meeting an open-hearted, mischievous and unintimidated girl whom he struggles to scorn as inferior; having his flaws contextualized by introducing his controlling, snobbish mother; finally, risking everything to rescue the redeemer-girl. Introducing a poison-clawed Demon Dog Darcy, with the power to raise the dead and blast his enemies to hell, unbalances Inuyasha: Sesshomaru’s well-written redemption arc commences just as Inuyasha’s own arc grinds to a halt, spending a hundred chapters randomly upgrading his sword while the fandom sways toward the narratively marginalized Sesshomaru. Demon Dog Darcy is then forced to hand his emotionally-earned powers over to Inuyasha in an exasperatingly contrived plot twist. But Sesshomaru’s very marginalization in Inuyasha‘s narrative, and total detachment from the main heroine, function to intensify fangirl emotional and sexual frustration: the ultimate aim of any Ice Prince. Although Demon Dog Darcy progressively thaws emotionally, the character’s sexual unavailability is emphasized by spiked armor encircling his chest and maintained by filling the “Elizabeth Bennet” role with a pre-pubescent girl (one fervently hopes).

Demon-in-Distress: The “Wolf” Archetype

The defining characteristic of the ‘Wolf’ is his combination of desperate emotional and sexual availability with repeatedly emphasized vulnerability and animalism. The most exaggeratedly vulnerable is Ranma 1/2‘s Ryoga, a little boy lost in the literal sense that he farcically lacks any sense of direction. The fanged, impulsive Ryoga’s regular transformations into a small, cute piglet add to his vulnerability. His inability to tell the heroine Akane of his true nature and feelings, out of fear of losing his privileged access as her pet pig, forms a near-perfect satire of the “Friendzone” phenomenon.

Inuyasha‘s impulsive, hotheaded Koga, a Ryoga lookalike, is a wolf-demon. In contrast to the elusive, emotionally conflicted hero Inuyasha, Koga falls for the heroine Kagome almost immediately and pursues her consistently. The manga is notable for constantly placing Koga in helpless ‘demon-in-distress’ situations requiring rescue, and for counterbalancing Sesshomaru’s spiked, hug-repellent armor and Inuyasha’s loose robes with Koga’s skimpy armor and furred micro-miniskirt, concealing his crotch only by careful choice of viewing angle.

Although Buffy‘s Spike is a vampire, theoretically an “ice prince” archetype, the character bears a dog’s name and typical ‘wolf’ impulsiveness and romantic vulnerability. In his second season introduction, he is confined to a wheelchair and forced to watch his beloved Drusilla seduced by “Ice Prince” rival Angel. In the third season, he’s pathetically dumped and weeping. In the fourth, he’s neutered by a brain chip that zaps him for attacking, so ‘he doesn’t chase the other puppies anymore’. In the fifth, the trope of Spike’s nakedness is introduced as vulnerability; he bares his chest to Buffy’s stake and confesses his love. This sequence is revealed as Spike’s dream; he is stripped and Buffy is fully clothed even in his own sexual fantasies. Spike is also stripped and tortured for love of Buffy by the dominant, female deity Glory in this season. In the sixth, after their first sexual encounter, Buffy is again fully clothed, abusing Spike verbally while he sprawls naked and defenseless. She repeatedly violates his sexual boundaries from a position of dominance; his attempt to force himself on her is presented as a crime of pathetic desperation. Though “Ice Prince” Angel wishes to torment and kill Buffy when he is soulless, Spike’s soulless state is no obstacle to his love – the emotional dependence of the ‘wolf’ knows no bounds.

Twilight’s Jacob Black is another wolf defined by constant loyalty, before attempting to force himself onto Bella in an act portrayed as pathetic desperation. Where Edward’s brief moment of toplessness is a dramatic, suicidal act that will dazzle a watching crowd, Jacob’s toplessness and skimpy attire are chronic, underlining his availability.

Shishihokodan! Or, Why Team Jacob Loses

Comparing the fandom of all four series reveals an interesting trend: fangirls are roughly equally divided between Team Jacob and Team Edward, Team Spike and Team Angel, Team Ryoga and Team Ranma, Team Koga and Team Inuyasha; nonetheless, the “Ice Prince” always gets the girl. It would be easy to blame the creators. Yet, Stephenie Meyer claims to be “Team Jacob.” Both Marti Noxon and Jane Espenson Buffy‘s main female writer/directors have made statements in support of the BuffyXSpike romance. Rumiko Takahashi’s writings in the romcom genre, Maison Ikkoku and One Pound Gospel, also reward and root for heroes in the vulnerable ‘wolf’ mode, and it is Takahashi who provides a structural explanation for ‘ice prince’ triumph with Ranma 1/2‘s Shishihokodan arc.

The “Shishihokodan” is a blast of energy which enables perpetual loser Ryoga to defeat the hero Ranma by harnessing his heartbreak. Ranma attempts to defeat the all-powerful Shishihokodan with a confidence-blast, but can only triumph by giving Ryoga momentary hope of sexual opportunity. In other words, Ryoga loses not because he is inferior, but because losing is the paradoxical source of his power. Any woman attracted to the “wolf” archetype is inherently drawn to vulnerability; her attraction is intensified by the wolf’s heartbroken rejection. Any woman attracted to the ‘ice prince’ is inherently drawn to dominance; her attraction is conversely reduced by his loss of mastery. As such, pursuing the resistant hero and resisting the pursuing hero create positively and negatively charged polarities to an explosive battery of sexual tension, a narrative trap which dooms the “wolf,” as Takahashi showed herself sympathetically aware with the Shishihokodan arc.

The wolf is difficult to dispose of: any alternative love interest would undermine his painful availability, thus one must be introduced with unsatisfactory suddenness at the last minute. The sudden arrival of a pig-fetishist marks Ryoga’s sidelining in Ranma 1/2; a wolf-girl for Koga is a last-minute addition to the Inuyasha anime, while Koga simply loses his previously foolhardy fighting spirit, forgets his long-established vengeance vendetta and slinks out of the original manga after admitting that Kagome should be with Inuyasha. Most disturbingly, the newly-arrived love interest for Jacob Black is literally newly-arrived as a newborn; his obsessive need to psychologically groom an infant into a future bride doesn’t bother the infant’s parents, presumably merely relieved that the wolf has been disposed of. More satisfyingly, rather than slinking away Koga-style, Spike’s acceptance that Buffy can’t love him “but thanks for saying” allows him to destroy the Hellmouth and be redeemed, incinerating himself in a spectacular blast of purest Shishihokodan.

What does this mean for our reading of film representations of male Madonna/Whore complex? It implies the continual defeat of the Whore as structural necessity – as a pursuing character she must be resisted to generate sexual tension, regardless of whether the author is Team Madonna or Team Whore. So, is womankind’s reading of a value judgement in the Madonna’s triumph flawed, like the hetero-male audience’s resentment of SARCom as poisonously emasculating? In fact, mankind’s Whore is generally portrayed as more empowered than womankind’s Wolf, probably because our culture sees male sexuality as common weakness but female sexuality as social rebellion. It is the female audience’s model of dominant-resistor/submissive-pursuer that aligns the rivalry dynamic of triumphant dominant with the love dynamic of triumphant resistor in a perfect feedback loop that structurally maximizes sexual tension (hence the squealing). But if male readers fail to appreciate Ice Prince/Wolf, are we likewise misreading Madonna/Whore? When Marlene Dietrich’s Frenchy hurls herself in front of a bullet and dies in James Stewart’s arms, is this the patriarchal punishment of a promiscuous woman or is it merely a blast of purest Shishihokodan?

Brigit McCone is unapologetically Team Wolf, writes and directs short films, radio dramas and The Erotic Adventures of Vivica (as Voluptua von Temptitillatrix). Her hobbies include doodling and making weird Pride and Prejudice analogies.

Violence Against Indigenous Women: Fun, Sexy, and No Big Deal on the Big Screen

Over and over, violence against indigenous women is made to titillate, built into narratives along with action, suspense, swashbuckling, and romance. Indigenous women become exotic props, and when we are identified with these dehumanized caricatures, it becomes easier to treat us inhumanely.

Captain Hook kidnaps Tiger Lily in Peter Pan — Captain Hook kidnaps Tiger Lily in *Peter Pan*

This guest post by Elissa Washuta previously appeared at Racialicious and on her Tumblr and is cross-posted with permission.

In her Aug. 20 Globe and Mail commentary, Dr. Sarah Hunt of the Kwagiulth band of the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation wrote about the limited success of government inquiries and her concerns about other measures taken in reaction to acts of violence already committed, such as the establishment of DNA databases for missing persons. Dr. Hunt writes:

“Surely tracking indigenous girls’ DNA so they can be identified after they die is not the starting point for justice. Indigenous women want to matter before we go missing. We want our lives to matter as much as our deaths; our stake in the present political struggle for indigenous resurgence is as vital as the future.”

Violence against indigenous women is not, of course, happening only in Canada. In the U.S., for example, the Justice Department reports that one in three American Indian women have been raped or experienced an attempted rape, and the rate of sexual assault against American Indian women is more than twice the national average. This violence is not taking place only in Indian Country.

In the Globe and Mail on August 22, Elizabeth Renzetti wrote about three recent murders of First Nations women.

“What unites these three cases is that the victims – Tina Fontaine, Samantha Paul and Loretta Saunders – were all aboriginal women. What else unites them, besides the abysmal circumstances of their deaths? What economic, cultural, historical or social factors? Anything? Nothing?”

Jeffords holding the murdered Sonseeahray

I can’t answer that, but I know that all of these women—and every other indigenous woman in Canada and the U.S.—lives in a society that includes images of violence against indigenous women in its entertainment products. Over and over, violence against indigenous women is made to titillate, built into narratives along with action, suspense, swashbuckling, and romance. Indigenous women become exotic props, and when we are identified with these dehumanized caricatures, it becomes easier to treat us inhumanely.

Take as an example Disney’s Pocahontas. Released in 1995, the cartoon feature has replaced the historical figure’s life story in the minds of many Americans. Much has been made of Disney’s exotification of Pocahontas. John Smith is only compelled to put down his gun because of her beauty. Pocahontas is imbued with animal qualities throughout the film as she scuttles, bounds, swims, creeps, and dives. This reinforces a long-held conception of Native peoples as being “close to nature” at best, “more animal than human” at worst—and the latter is a view that makes us easier to abuse.

Emily and Sam in New Moon — Emily and Sam in *New Moon*

In a Globe and Mail editorial, “How to Stop an Epidemic of Native Deaths,” the author brings up the many social factors at work in the epidemic of violence against Native women. I bring up the problematic and pervasive imagery above not because I think it is the most problematic issue, but because it is what I know, and because we can start solving it with our individual actions. We don’t need to call Native women “squaws” and joke that they were “hookers” when forced into prostitution, as Drunk History did last year. We can make better choices than “naughty Native” costumes on Halloween. We have the freedom to choose the representations we make in the world, and when we perpetuate damaging stereotypes of indigenous women as rapeable, we are using our autonomy to disempower others.

Karen Warren wrote in “A feminist philosophical perspective on ecofeminist spiritualities”:

“Dysfunctional systems are often maintained through systematic denial, a failure or inability to see the reality of a situation. This denial need not be conscious, intentional, or malicious; it only needs to be pervasive to be effective.”

I’m tired of hearing that these images aren’t harmful. I’d rather see how much they’re missed when they’re gone than continue to listen to the insistence that the image of Pocahontas at the end of a gun barrel is wholesome while, every day, more and more indigenous women die while we are told that this is not a phenomenon, not a problem, nothing more than crime.

‘Divergent’ is Not So Divergent But Still Crucial for Feminism

I’m hopeful that ‘Divergent,’ as the first installment of the series, is setting Tris up to be a memorable heroine in her own right in the following films. I’m hoping that ‘Divergent’ is the story of the forging of our heroine, the exploration of her talents, abilities, and heart and that the second and third films will show her learning from her experiences, becoming a leader, and inspiring others.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez
Mild Spoilers
Trigger Warning: mention of sexualized violence

The much-anticipated film Divergent is based on the series of teen sci-fi novels by Veronica Roth dealing with a walled-off, post-apocalyptic Chicago wherein society has divided itself into factions in an effort to create order and peace. Our heroine Beatrice “Tris” Prior (Shailene Woodley) finds out she is “Divergent,” a taboo non-conformist who doesn’t fit into any of the factions and is therefore threatening to the caste system.

The five factions of the "Divergent" universe — The five factions of the *Divergent* universe

Disclaimer: I haven’t read the novel series yet.

As a sucker for female-driven sci-fi stories, I liked the premise, but Divergent stands on the shoulders of many young adult and teen movies that came before it. Divergent features training-based dream-like hallucinations like in Ender’s Game.

Tris frees herself with the realization, "This isn't real." — Tris frees herself with the realization, “This isn’t real.”

Tris is another thin, white heroine who learns she is more capable than she ever suspected, much like Katniss from The Hunger Games or Clary from The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes series.

Tris must be brave and not flinch at the knives flying at her.

Divergent‘s Choosing Ceremony has young people choose which faction they’ll belong to for the rest of their lives (“faction before blood”). With factions like Abnegation, Erudite, and Dauntless, the Choosing Ceremony hugely resembles the Sorting Ceremony from the Harry Potter series, wherein wizarding youths are sorted into houses like Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw (representing bravery, hard work, and intelligence respectively).

The factions seated at the Choosing Ceremony

Divergent also spotlights the obligatory overwrought teen romance replete with multiple manly rescues of our heroine in a way that bears a strong resemblance to Twilight (though Tris admittedly has more fortitude and independence than her counterpart, Bella).

Obligatory sunset make-out session...with tattoos. — Obligatory sunset make-out session…with tattoos.

Divergents themselves are essentially misfits with special abilities that speak to the potential of human beings for evolution into a more advanced species like in the famed comic book turned cartoon series turned movie franchise X-Men.

Tris defies categorization, her test revealing her to be Divergent.

Lastly, I think we should expect the second film (Insurgent) to really play up the youth rebellion angle like in The Legend of Billie Jean.

Outlaw youths on the run, trying to be understood, striving to overthrow an unjust system.

So, yes, Divergent is derivative and predicable. Funny how a movie with an emphasis on the importance of being different…isn’t all that different itself. I was, however, still entertained, and I’m willing to wait and see if the second two films pave their own way, uniquely establishing themselves within the lexicon of the iconic pop culture fantasy/sci-fi teen series genre.

Divergent is basically an unnecessary prequel. I’m a fan of training sequences and didn’t tire of them despite the fact that Tris repeatedly gets her ass handed to her.

No wonder she's always getting gut punched with a defense like that. — With a defense stance like that, no wonder she’s always getting gut punched.

However, almost an entire film dedicated to Tris’ martial training, her budding romance, and the requirements of survival within the faction of Dauntless are not strictly necessary for the big picture scope of the series. I suspect the real story starts in the next movie, Insurgent, with the caste system in upheaval and Tris coming into her own as a leader of dissidents.

I was disappointed at the under-utilization of Kate Winslet‘s extensive acting powers in her role as the Erudite leader and villainess Jeanine. I’m frankly so tired of the cold, fanatic female villain trope. Jodie Foster played a similarly uninspired role in the sci-fi film Elysium. At first, I hoped that Jeanine would only be Tris’ first foe, the patriarchy-complicit woman, and that Tris would advance beyond that to actually deconstructing the patriarchal system of oppression in the following films. A quick Wiki search disabused me of that notion.

Kate Winslet as Jeanine in "Divergent" — Kate Winslet as Jeanine in *Divergent*

No, it looks like our lead villain throughout the series will be Jeanine, which makes me question the underlying thematics behind the class structure that the film and book series critique. Is it claiming that cold, intelligent women are the problem? Are they the purveyors of this dysfunctional culture? If so, for which real world social ill is the post-apocalyptic world of Divergent a stand-in? What problematic mechanism of power does this sci-fi series seek to illuminate? So far, all we’ve got is a generic argument that being different and thinking differently is a good thing. Not much subversiveness going on there.

Tris also gets rescued a lot, mostly by her love interest, Four, played by Theo James (James Franco called…he wants his face back). This made me roll my eyes a lot because I didn’t pay $10 to watch a young woman lead be so dependent on a dude for her survival. Not only that, but through a fear simulation, we learn that one of Tris’ greatest fears is that Four will try to rape her, and that theme isn’t delved into at all. However, I did admire the close, loving relationship Tris shares with her mother (Ashley Judd) and that her mom also rescues her in a surprising act that would make both factions Abnegation and Dauntless proud.

Tris mother, Natalie, brushes her hair on test day. — Tris’ mother, Natalie, brushes her hair on test day.

As with so many other aspects of the film, I’m letting our heroine’s constant need to be rescued slide because I’m hopeful that Divergent, as the first installment of the series, is setting Tris up to be a memorable heroine in her own right in the following films. I’m hoping that Divergent is the story of the forging of our heroine, the exploration of her talents, abilities, and heart and that the second and third films will show her learning from her experiences, becoming a leader, and inspiring others. At the end of Divergent, we saw a glimmer of her potential in her rallying of others, quick thinking in a crisis, her empathy, self-sacrifice, inventiveness, and the steel in her spine.

Tris is endlessly tenacious and never gives up. — Tris is endlessly tenacious and makes up her own mind about things.

The bottom line is that, despite Divergent‘s glaring flaws, I am so inspired by this outpouring of stories written by and about women. The mathematical expression of the term divergent is, simply put, “having no finite limits.” Right now, Tris’ story is empowering young girls and women with her bravery, her vulnerability, and her centrality. We have so desperately needed greater representation for young women so that they can imagine themselves in the roles of heroines, leaders, and catalysts for change. It is an important step forward that these films are being made at all. It is a coup that they are so damned popular, proving that people, in fact, DO want to see stories about women and that those stories DO sell. Eat your heart out Hollywood.

Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

‘Brave’ and the Legacy of Female Prepubescent Power Fantasies

Basically, Brave isn’t really that brave of a film. It’s traipsing through a well-established trope that, though positive, is stagnant. Don’t get me wrong; I love all the prepubescent female power fantasy tales I’ve listed, and I’m grateful that they exist and that I could grow up with many of them. However, we can’t pretend that Brave is pushing any boundaries. It sends the message that little girls can be powerful as long as they remain little girls. The dearth of representations of postpubescent heroines who are not objectified, whose sexuality does not rule their interactions, and who are the heroes of their own stories is appalling.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

Reposted from Bitch Flick’s 2013 Oscar Week

I liked Disney Pixar’s Brave well enough. It’s pretty enough. It’s a story about a mother and daughter, and there was no romance, both of which are nice; though, as I’ll show, neither are as uncommon as they might initially appear. I didn’t find the feminist qualities of this movie to be particularly impressive. Brave is actually situated within a somewhat prolific trope of female prepubescent power fantasy tales. Within this trope, young girls are allowed and even encouraged to be strong, assertive, creative, and heroes of their own stories. I call them “feminism lite” because these characters are only afforded this power because they are girl children who are unthreatening in their prepubescent, pre-sexualized state.

Let’s consider a few examples.

First, we’ve got Matilda, a film based on the eponymous novel by Roald Dahl. This story is about a genius six-year-old girl who realizes she has telekinetic powers. Matilda is brave and kind to those who deserve it and punishes authority figures who take advantage of their positions of power. This story, similar to Brave, is about the budding (surrogate) mother/daughter relationship between Matilda and her kindergarten teacher, Miss Honey. They find idyllic happiness at the end of the film when they adopt each other to form their own little family.

“I can feel the strongness. I feel like I can move almost anything in the world.” – Matilda

Then there’s Harriet the Spy, based on the book by Louise Fitzhugh, about an inquisitive, imaginative girl who learns the power of her voice and how her words affect others. Another potent mother/daughter bond is featured between Harriet and her nanny, Golly.

“You’re an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it’s gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life.” – Golly

We can’t forget Pippi Longstocking, based on the book series by Astrid Lindgren. Pippi is independent and adventurous with a slew of fantastical stories. She also has incredible physical strength, exotic pets, and teaches her friends Tommy and Annika that just because the trio are children, doesn’t mean experiences and desires should be denied them.

“I’m Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Longstocking, daughter of Captain Efraim Longstocking, Pippi for short.” – Pippi

There’s also Whale Rider, based on the book by Witi Ihimaera. Pai is a determined young girl who wants to become the chief of her Māori tribe, but that is forbidden because she’s a girl. With wisdom and vision, Pai strives to unite and lead her people into the future. She is dedicated, stubborn and perseveres, showing she has the uncanny spiritual ability to speak with (and ride) whales.

“My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs…I know that our people will keep going forward, all together, with all of our strength.” – Pai

One of my personal favorites is Pan’s Labyrinth (or El Labertino del Fauno meaning “The Labyrinth of the Faun” in Spanish). Interestingly, Pan’s Labyrinth is the first on our list that wasn’t based on a book, as it was written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. The film takes place in post Civil War Spain with young Ofelia as our heroine. She is forced to live with her fascist captain stepfather who hunts down rebels while her mother languishes in a difficult pregnancy. Totally isolated, Ofelia retreats into a dark fantasy world replete with fairies, fauns, and child-eating monsters. In this world (that may or may not truly exist), she is a long-lost immortal underworld princess trying to make her way home. Throughout the tale, Ofelia forms a strong connection with Merecedes, a kitchen maid who is not only secretly a rebel spy, but is brave and crazy badass. Ofelia is intelligent, defiant, loyal, and ultimately self-sacrificing.

“Hello. I am Princess Moanna, and I am not afraid of you.” – Ofelia

All of these stories validate young female agency because all these girls are prepubescent. They are too young and too physically underdeveloped to be objectified or vilified for their sexuality. There are tales that continue to advocate for the empowerment of their slightly older heroines despite their budding sexuality. These are pseudo coming-of-age films. I say “pseudo” here because the main characters don’t actually become sexual beings.

A great contemporary example of a pseudo coming-of-age tale is the action-thriller Hanna, starring the talented Saoirse Ronan as a 14-year-old CIA experiment with enhanced DNA to make her the optimal weapon. She is trained in arctic isolation and is therefore unsocialized and unschooled in the ways of the world. Most of the film centers around her mission to kill Cate Blanchett’s evil CIA agent character, Marissa. However, there is an interlude when Hanna befriends brash young Sophie who is eager to grow up. The two sneak out and go dancing, and a boy kisses Hanna. Our young heroine is at first intrigued and even enraptured by the experience, but she ends up knocking the boy to the ground and nearly breaking his neck. Later, there is also sexual tension between Hanna and Sophie as the two lie next to each other in a tent, falling asleep, but nothing comes of it. These are examples of Hanna’s awakening sexuality, which the film insinuates may ultimately be terrifying in its power and lack of boundaries. Hanna, though, is still young and chooses her father and his indoctrination over her own self-discovery.

“Kissing requires a total of thirty-four facial muscles.” – Hanna

Not to forget Jim Hanson’s classic Labyrinth starring Jennifer Connelly as Sarah, a teenager who is enthralled by the fantasy of the Labyrinth along with its alluring goblin king, Jereth (aka David Bowie in an impressive Tina Turner mullet wig). Sarah withdraws from her family, yearning for adventure and romance while hating her obligation to babysit her “screaming baby” brother, Toby, so she calls on the goblin king to take the boy away. She then spends the rest of the movie trying to get the toddler back. Jareth attempts to seduce her into forgetting the child and being his goblin queen, which is what Sarah initially wanted, but, in the end, she chooses her family and fantastical goblin friends over love, romance, and her sexuality. At the end of the film when she says to her goblin friends, “I need you; I need you all,” she is affirming that she’s not ready for adulthood and wants to remain a child a bit longer. Her intact innocence is what allows her to be uncomplicatedly triumphant, to assert her equality with and independence from Jareth.

“For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great. You have no power over me!” – Sarah

To be empowered, all the aforementioned heroines must remain perpetually young, fixed forever in their prepubescent state within the reels of their films. Once our heroines become sexual teens, their power is overwhelmingly defined by their sexuality, and/or their worth is determined by their body’s objectification. In fact, many of these tales are no longer fantasies, but horror movies (or movies that have horror qualities) that demonize female sexual awakenings. I don’t even want to disgrace the hallowed web pages of Bitch Flicks with an obvious account of the worthless Twilight series that equates female sexuality with death and advocates teen pregnancy over reproductive rights. However, Bella is a prime example of a young woman whose own self-value is dependent on how the male characters view her. She is the apex of a noxious love triangle, and her desirability defines her, creating the entire basis of the poorly acted, poorly produced saga.

“It’s like diamonds…you’re beautiful.” – Bella re: Edward’s sparkly skin. Gag, Puke, Retch

Ginger Snaps clearly fits the mold of the vilification of budding female sexuality. Ginger gets her period for the first time and is therefore attacked by a werewolf. The attack has rape connotations, implying that Ginger wouldn’t have been as enticing to the wolf if she weren’t yet sexual, especially since her mousy sister Brigitte is spared. Ginger goes through a series of changes, becoming sexually aggressive and promiscuous. When she has unprotected sex with a boy, turning him into a werewolf, this further underscores the connection between Ginger’s monstrous lycanthropy and her unchecked sexuality. There’s also a great deal of sexual tension between Ginger and her sister, Brigitte, suggesting that her sexuality is boundless and therefore frightening.

“I get this ache…and I, I thought it was for sex, but it’s to tear everything to fucking pieces.” – Ginger

Lastly, we have the pseudo-feminist film Teeth about a young girl who grows teeth on her vagina (vagina dentata style). Our teenage heroine, Dawn, is in one of those Christian abstinence/purity clubs, and everything is fine until she becomes attracted to and makes out with a boy. The film punishes her for her newfound sexuality and mocks her abstinence vow by having the boy rape her. Dawn’s vagina then bites off his penis. Over the course of the movie, Dawn is essentially sexually assaulted four times. Four times. She is degraded from the beginning of the film to the very end. Her supposedly empowerful teeth-laden vagina is a dubious gift, considering she generally must be raped in order to use it. Instead of focusing on the power of her sexuality and the awesome choice she has of whether or not to wield it, the film victimizes her at every corner, undercutting her potential strength and sexual agency.

“The way [the ring] wraps around your finger, that’s to remind you to keep your gift wrapped until the day you trade it in for that other ring. That gold ring.” – Dawn

Basically, Brave isn’t really that brave of a film. It’s traipsing through a well-established trope that, though positive, is stagnant. Don’t get me wrong; I love all the prepubescent female power fantasy tales I’ve listed, and I’m grateful that they exist and that I could grow up with many of them. However, we can’t pretend that Brave is pushing any boundaries. It sends the message that little girls can be powerful as long as they remain little girls. The dearth of representations of postpubescent heroines who are not objectified, whose sexuality does not rule their interactions, and who are the heroes of their own stories is appalling. There may be exceptions, but my brain has a fairly to moderately comprehensive catalog of films, especially those starring strong female characters. Scanning…scanning…file not found. If I, who actively seek out films that use integrity in their depictions of kickass women, can’t think of many, how is the casual viewer to find them? How is the teenage girl coming into her sexuality while facing negativity and recriminations supposed to see herself portrayed in a light that gives her the opportunity to be nuanced, smart and brave, to be independent or to be a leader?

——————
Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

2013 Oscar Week: ‘Brave’ and the Legacy of Female Prepubescent Power Fantasies

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

Let’s consider a few examples.

“I can feel the strongness. I feel like I can move almost anything in the world.” – Matilda

“You’re an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it’s gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life.” – Golly

“I’m Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Longstocking, daughter of Captain Efraim Longstocking, Pippi for short.” – Pippi

There’s also Whale Rider based on the book by Witi Ihimaera. Pai is a determined young girl who wants to become the chief of her Māori tribe, but that is forbidden because she’s a girl. With wisdom and vision, Pai strives to unite and lead her people into the future. She is dedicated, stubborn and perseveres, showing she has the uncanny spiritual ability to speak with (and ride) whales.

“My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs…I know that our people will keep going forward, all together, with all of our strength.” – Pai

“Hello. I am Princess Moanna, and I am not afraid of you.” – Ofelia

“Kissing requires a total of thirty-four facial muscles.” – Hanna

Not to forget Jim Hanson’s classic Labyrinth starring Jennifer Connelly as Sarah, a teenager who is enthralled by the fantasy of the Labyrinth along with its alluring goblin king, Jereth (aka David Bowie in an impressive Tina Turner mullet wig). Sarah withdraws from her family, yearning for adventure and romance while hating her obligation to babysit her “screaming baby” brother, Toby, so she calls on the goblin king to take the boy away. She then spends the rest of the movie trying to get the toddler back. Jareth attempts to seduce her into forgetting the child and being his goblin queen, which is what Sarah initially wanted, but, in the end, she chooses her family and fantastical goblin friends over love, romance, and her sexuality. When she says to her goblin friends, “I need you; I need you all,” she is affirming that she’s not ready for adulthood and wants to remain a child a bit longer. Her intact innocence is what allows her to be uncomplicatedly triumphant, to assert her equality with and independence from Jareth.

“For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great. You have no power over me!” – Sarah

I don’t even want to disgrace the hallowed web pages of Bitch Flicks with an obvious account of the worthless Twilight series that equates female sexuality with death and advocates teen pregnancy over reproductive rights. However, Bella is a prime example of a young woman whose own self-value is dependent on how the male characters view her. She is the apex of a noxious love triangle, and her desirability defines her, creating the entire basis of the poorly acted, poorly produced saga.

“It’s like diamonds…you’re beautiful.” – Bella re: Edward’s sparkly skin. Gag, Puke, Retch

“I get this ache…and I, I thought it was for sex, but it’s to tear everything to fucking pieces.” – Ginger

“The way [the ring] wraps around your finger, that’s to remind you to keep your gift wrapped until the day you trade it in for that other ring. That gold ring.” – Dawn

Basically, Brave isn’t really that brave of a film. It’s traipsing through a well-established trope that, though positive, is stagnant. Don’t get me wrong; I love all the prepubescent female power fantasy tales I’ve listed, and I’m grateful that they exist and that I could grow up with many of them. However, we can’t pretend that Brave is pushing any boundaries. It sends the message that little girls can be powerful as long as they remain little girls. The dearth of representations of postpubescent heroines who are not objectified, whose sexuality does not rule their interactions, and who are the heroes of their own stories is appalling. There may be exceptions, but my brain has a fairly to moderately comprehensive catalog of films, especially those starring strong female characters. Scanning…scanning…file not found. If I, who actively seek out films that use integrity in their depictions of kickass women, can’t think of many, how is the casual viewer to find them? How is the teenage girl coming into her sexuality while facing negativity and recriminations supposed to see herself portrayed in a light that gives her the opportunity to be nuanced, to be smart and brave, to be independent or to be a leader?

———–

Tanya Erzen’s ‘Fanpire’ Blog Tour: Fans of the Twilight Saga

This guest post by Tanya Erzen is part of a blog tour to promote the release of her newest book, Fanpire: The Twilight Saga and the Women Who Love It, which you can purchase at the Beacon Press website. Other blogs participating in the tour include Women and Hollywood, Feminism and Religion, Fangtastic Books, and Everyday Sociology.

Even though Breaking Dawn Part 2, the long-awaited final film of the Twilight series, premieres on November 16 in Los Angeles, devoted fans will begin camping out for days and weeks ahead of time. They’ll sleep in tents and shuffle through interminable lines in a grimy parking lot, all for the fleeting glimpse of a Twilight celebrity on the black carpet. After all, this is the age of mundane celebrity: everyone wants to be one and be close to one. Fan sites like the Twilight Lexicon and HisGoldenEyes will roam the premiere, hoping to obtain the coveted interview with stars like Robert Pattinson or Kellan Lutz. In the fan firmament, these sites reign near the top of the hierarchy, where they have access to insider gossip, corporate giveaways, and visits to film sets.

The massive fan demand to be at the film premiere as the Twilight juggernaut reaches its crescendo has prompted Summit Entertainment to almost double the numbers they will accommodate at “fan camp.” Mothers and daughters, groups of girls and contingents of TwilightMoms, traveling from afar to the tent city will feel the elation of being among other captivated fans. After days together, they’ll be bonded to legions of others with the same aspirations, embarking upon a kind of public happiness absent from their daily lives. There have certainly been fan crazes before, but what differentiates the Twilight phenomenon is that its fan base consists almost entirely of women and girls.

Denigrating these female fans as rabid, obsessed and hysterical is a favorite pastime for many media outlets. The specter of hundreds of stargazing women, clamoring for a glimpse of actors, evokes snarky bewilderment among pundits. Descriptions of fans typically include comments about unbridled fanaticism and the ear-piercing shrieks of thousands of girls.

At one Comic-Con, the longstanding convention that is a lure for, mainly, male fans of comics, science fiction, and fantasy, Twilight fans camped out on sidewalks for days to attend the actors’ panel. The invasion of female fans into the Comic-Con stronghold sparked a backlash. A few disgruntled male attendees sported signs that read, “Twilight Ruined Comic-Con,” and one baffled online commentator at Rotten Tomatoes wrote, “Fan boy culture’s hold on the Con was hijacked by a vampire romance, of all things.”

Applying adjectives like “screeching” and “stalking” to female fans, commentators imply that Twilight fans should just get a life. Older women, especially, are a favorite target. They’re “stalker moms,” pitiable addicts, and negligent parents. Details magazine mocked them for reverting back to adolescent folly: “It’s not uncommon to hear them break into unprompted gasps, giggles, and squeals.” The implication is that these women just need to get a life instead of spending all their time obsessing about a frivolous interspecies romance.

It is unsurprising that critics deride a phenomenon that attracts mainly women, to all extents labeling it as an instance of mass hysteria. The misogyny lurking here is obvious. One has to wonder why, for example, equally zealous fantasy-football players or sci-fi geeks, many of whom happen to be male, do not endure the same disdain.

The refrains go something like this: the books are poorly written and riddled with cliches, the people who like them must be dupes of the patriarchy or simply burdened with bad taste. These screeds overlook what makes the series compelling for millions of women and girls. In my time with Twilight fans around the world—from the occasional forum participant and those who watched the films fifty times to the person who corralled her entire office into choosing Team Edward or Team Jacob—I have found they also spoke of how the fanpire transformed their everyday lives, not as mere escapism but as a vehicle for connecting with others and forging new identities beyond that of Mormon mother or ordinary teen.

At conventions and premieres, thousands of girls and women discard their cares about boys and men to bond in aerobics and self-defense classes and dance together at elaborate Twilight-themed vampire balls. Married women in the group TwilightMoms temporarily abandon domestic responsibilities for convivial sleepovers where they simultaneously bemoan the absence of spicy sex and intimacy in their marriages and reassure themselves that heterosexual marriage is the only way to envision their lives. Three generations of families bond with each other over their enchantment with the books, attending book releases, conventions and tours of Forks. None of these fans care if Comic-Con is no longer teeming solely with men wearing alien and superhero costumes, nor do they need or want rescuing from the scorn they receive for their fanaticism.

At the same time the fanpire encompasses authentic ways to belong and connect to others, the ceaseless commercialization of Twilight means that for many fans, ravenous consumption of all things Twilight is the main way to retain their feelings of enchantment. When they begin to feel Post-Saga Depression (PSD), what fans call the blue feeling that descends after finishing the books and realizing there is no actual Edward, there are Edward and Bella Barbie dolls, calendars, video games, graphic novels, and fangs readily available in the vast, bazaar-like atmosphere online or at some conventions. Everything on display at official conventions is based on spinoff marketing, celebrity endorsement, and steering fans to other movies that feature the Twilight actors.

Even while critics continue to disparage the fans, they remain a key concern of Summit and other brands eager to exploit their earnings potential. Tent city is now a Summit-sponsored event, designed to harness fan’s buying power. A fan once described the fanpire as an army storming bookstores, conventions, and movie theaters. Twilight-lovers want the ineffable high to last as long as possible, and the corporate sponsors of these events are certainly delighted to oblige. Creation Entertainment knows that the danger for fans arises when, without another book to read, life begins to feel barren. The swoon-inducing possibility of celebrity proximity and the desire for the next Twilight product sustain fans in the months of drought between a new film or significant fanpire gossip.

Critics scoff at Twilight fans, and then they wonder why Fifty Shades of Grey, originally a smut Twilight fan fiction story, is a national bestseller. It’s time that they began taking the complicated practices and pleasures of female fans seriously. The corporate marketers certainly are.

———-

Tanya Erzen is an associate professor of comparative religious studies at Ohio State University. Her work has appeared in the Nation, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post. She is the author of Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement, which won the Gustave O. Arlt Award and the Ruth Benedict Prize. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and a visiting scholar at the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington. She lives in Seattle.